A Tea Party for Cream
by Draenog Glas
Summary: Cream is on the throes of growing up, and Sonic tries to tell her that being a child, while sometimes foolish, can be the most brilliant and bright thing anyone can be.


There were many worries on her mind, as she slept nearly without a disturbance, the morning cold, shivers erupting from her small frame.

Sonic had risen up the stairs with a cup of tea and the words of Vanilla threading through his head that she had to come with her to piano practice, that the little girl had to exercise early to become a bright, coruscating star.

The door creaked loudly. It nearly woke the child up, but she kept sleeping. The sun was barely bright enough to shine through the tree's black branches.

He wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do. As after all, Cream was so young, so vulnerable, and she needed to experience security as a child.

Shivering, she cocooned herself into her blankets, afraid. The pain of his gentle touch was too much. She wasn't sure if she wanted to get up. Lie in bed, be covered with silken dreams, that was what she wanted.

Shining so brightly against the dark corners of her room, she clasped the tea around her small hands and smelled the scent. Chamomile. The tea was the star, the soon awakening sun in her room, the incandescent light bulb, was her sun. The moon was tucked away. Sonic had pushed it away to the far corners where the child no longer needed to worry. Dreams were gone, for about twelve hours. She would be comfortable in the waking world, for now.

Sonic sat beside her, feeling the bristling quills that flattened upon her touch, stroking him softly. Purring was inevitable. It happened, and she relaxed as she coaxed him to being more relaxed, even scratching his belly, hearing the undulations in his throat. Did he ever exposed his stomach to anyone, other than the children he met he tried to comfort? Cream was heavy with some sort of emotion, he could sense, and it was time to comfort her. Her sadness, was also, his sadness.

This story, at first, had a sad beginning. Cream often woke from tumultuous nightmares. Sonic wasn't around very often, fighting other forces that threatened to upset the balance of the world. Eggman always claimed he would make his empire a reality. Whatever. He was there to stop him, yet the adventures often made him neglect those who were important to him: the ones who loved him, had looked to him for comfort, and found guidance in him. Somehow, he had that touch of kindness whenever anyone needed it.

Cream, a child who was experiencing growing pains of being seven, then eight, then nine, then a big one and a zero, it was a very big change in her life, and Sonic wasn't there enough to help her through these years. Cream often looked to Sonic as some sort of father figure, as the whereabouts of their own father was completely unknown. Vanilla refused to talk about it. For what reason, Sonic was never sure.

_I know Cream's been stressed out about playing the piano and trying to be this sculpted person for everyone on her birthday. But she swears she wants to be an adult already at the age of seven. It's funny on what age children consider themselves to be adults. I remember myself that I thought I would finally be an adult at fourteen…_

But that was different, Sonic thought. Fourteen was so much different than seven. Seven people looked to you as a wising child, while fourteen people thought you were possibly annoying.

The tea was cold, to the frigid touch. She thanked him for coming here, but when she had to get ready for the recital, he stayed with her.

He stayed because he knew something was wrong.

He stayed because the child was going to go through even bigger changes throughout the years. And Vanilla just didn't seem to realize how Cream wished to be an adult, why childhood was so scary for her. These feelings were so new to her. He was sure things would be even worse when she went the transition of a child to a teen to a lady. Just the constant growing up had often made her wish she could be immortal, stay the same age forever, because then she could experience many changes in herself and not in life.

_I would have to get a house, pay bills, go to some sort of school…oh I just don't know Mr. Sonic!_

The birthday card was thumbed through, the pastel case it was held in, the cutesy little animals wishing her a nice birthday. These cards always made her sad. Because she never knew what to do with the money, and always thought it strange she should thank someone for something she truly didn't want.

And when she read the fancy lettering, she thought those things weren't true to herself. That she wasn't, at all, a person they wanted to spend time with.

"Mr. Sonic, do you think I'm a good person?"

The question shocked him. Of course Cream was a good person. She was the nicest person he ever knew! So was her mother! They always baked cookies and treats for him whenever he visited and helped out, and were always grateful to have him around. Why ask him this? Of course she knew the answer in her heart.

"Of course you are Cream."

Glancing at her bookshelf, Sonic saw many books that Cream had haphazardly put on her shelf, believing that people would find her a mature and grown-up person. The Great Gatsby, Alice in Wonderland, Catcher in the Rye, and some collections of Ray Bradbury. Things that he was sure that a seven-year-old wasn't quite knowledgeable enough to read. She had an array of her mother's dresses in her closet, her jewelry, her hats and her shoes. She was too busy trying to grow up to enjoy the things she had now. Found it sad. Sonic finished the rest of the tea (despite not being a strong liker of tea, being more of a hot cocoa or a cappuccino kind of guy), he stopped her before she finished laying out the clothes she would wear, folding his arms on his chest, his foot stamping somewhat. He didn't want to look intimidating, but he was concerned. A concerned father.

"Don't you think you're trying to grow up? Way too fast?"

So pink. The pearl necklace hung like pieces of bubble bath liquid that was crystallized to run her fingers over how smooth and relaxing her former childhood was. She wasn't sure on what to say. The necklace folded over her body, snapping into two, the gemmed bubble baths swimming on her floor.

"It's been so hard, Mr. Sonic, trying to be happy. I love my mother. I do. But I…just want to be like her. An adult. Because nothing bad has ever happened to an adult. Bad things just constantly happen to children. Life is too unfair for children. Life is too scary for children. I'd rather just grow up right now and avoid being a child altogether. There's no use being a child anymore. Anyone who wants to be a child again is a fool. A silly, dumb fool."

"I don't think they're fools, Cream. Sometimes the most brilliant people were able to be so brilliant because they wanted to be fools for one day. There's a lot of wisdom in bein' a fool. There's a lot of wisdom in bein' a child."

"Why would you say that Mr. Sonic? There are…not many good things in being a child. You don't get to stay up late, I can't read these books I always wanted to read, and I never get to help out my mom as much as I want to. It's no good being a child, Mr. Sonic!"

"Well I can tell you right now it's also no good being an adult at your age. Now, let's pretend you're…eighteen-years-old. And you're so successful at…writing books, that you want to invite me over for tea, at…"

He remembered reading some brief passages of The Great Gatsby, before he got bored of it.

"Over at the same house next to Mr. Gatsby's. And you want to go to this party and fancy the pants off everyone there, because everyone knows you write really great books. And you're very eloquent and sophisticated. That's what you always wanted to be, right?"

He could catch a brief hint of a smile. She pointed to the small, plastic table close to them, and said that she would invite him over for tea. And his name was Mrs. Dalloway.

The plastic table and chairs, suitable for only six-year-olds like Cream, Sonic could imagine how uncomfortable he would feel sitting on these, with his long legs tucked neatly away under the porcelain-colored table. She went in the closet while Sonic waited, stamping his feet, glancing at his invisible watch. He was still impatient, but tried to hide these habits with a small child. Sometimes; anyways, as Cream wanted to see what Sonic would look best in what gown, what dress, anything that would please and soothe her mind.

"You…you want me to wear…that?"

The dress was beryl, sea-colored, and it contained many frills and a bow and silk ribbon in the center and back. She got out a bonnet that was the same color of the dress, with a blue ribbon. Sonic expected her to make him into a gentleman that would take the small lady out to the ball, to some sort of fancy excursion that many fancy people and ones who had robotic monocled eyes would go to he once saw near Station Square, but as much as he wished he could say no, he went with it. The child's happiness was also his own.

It was an unexpected trip, somewhere down the future, somewhere down the past, Cream rapidly growing, the child becoming a lady of a stature similar to Vanilla's, the morning growing dark and seeping of stars and broken fragments of glass, and it was the 1920's again, the golden boom of Americana, as Cream had worn a dress chiffoned with ostrich feathers and many lines and strings of gold jewelry that nearly choked her neck, her hookah surrounded the room with the smells of astringent smoke, the lady speaking with a clear, confident voice, an air of superiority.

"Have you got everything ready for the party? Gatsby's party?"

_Why would I go to Gatsby's party? Why did she turn into this extravagant woman? Why does everything glitter here, everything is made of gold, and everyone here is completely shallow and possibly depressed?_

_Did Cream read any books lately that had to do with this?_

Cream, although an avid reader, was no prodigy, yet it made him wonder: how could she conjure up a world like this? The child was mostly a normal, polite nearly seven-year-old, unlike Tails, who was a prodigy with machines and mechanical know-how, but Sonic only smiled briefly, folded his hands onto his dress, and waited for the Lady to drink her sip of tea, while they could hear the cackling and laughter and yelling and shouting and screaming in joys and screaming in pains and sorrows near next door. Sonic had said nothing, had just passed the cookies and other scrumptious tidbits and the tea with only a stint of a grin and a glance that barely reached up her midriff. No utterances. There were more shouts, more laughters, more sobs, more anguished cries out at the back world. The world that Sonic knew wasn't his own. The many steel cuckoo clocks and the tall hat that Cream was wearing, possibly brimmed around the edges with mercury, they were from somewhere else.

_Do you know the way to Rivendell? Are you the one who have been burning books so future generations can't be swayed with their gentle words and their gentle truths? Do you know where the ducks fly off to in winter? Do you know how to make dandelion wine to be drunk for many summers? Do you know how a raven is like a writing desk?_

He couldn't answer any of these questions in his head. She expected the hat to roll off her head, as she smoked more acrid tobacco from her hookah, meanwhile the owl-eyed man had came and told Sonic that many people he will ever meet are "poor sons-of-a-bitches".

The tea lied cold in Sonic's grasp. What any of this meant, he didn't know. A brief tinge of unconsciousness dwelling in the act of a pen, a cup of tea and with literature that this person had sworn by.

_Would Cream be like this person someday, so…inspired by me?_

The house was silent. Cream poured yet another steaming cup of tea in their china blue mouths. Sonic still imagined himself as too big for this table, but with the silk dress, things were slightly easier. He was able to contort the form of his legs, as if he was a mermaid.

They chewed on the cookies slowly, Sonic taking in her face, seeing it so efficacious and bright.

"Cream," he said, a mouthful of cookies clucking against his tongue. "Have you ever considered writing anything? I know you're…almost seven, but I kind of get this hint that…"

Her smile grew dark, soon becoming black. Sonic wasn't sure if he offended her, but she only pointed to a white binder of childish storybooks that she did, saying that she thought that "no one would ever like them. Because I'm just not very good at it at all, despite what everyone else around me seems to say."

"Are they saying that you're good at writing?"

"Maybe," she murmured. "But I don't think they're any good. If I don't think they're any good, then what's the point in showing them, right Mr. Sonic?"

"Do you expect yourself to be a famous author already when you write, Cream?"

"Well…maybe. I just don't want to make books that people don't care about because they're made by a seven-year-old. I…want to make people feel things. I want them to feel for everyone in my books. Because you make me feel things that I have to get in my books."

She held the plastic binder inside her arms, her knees buckled against it. Sonic could tell she was one of those types of writers who never showed their work to anyone, until they were sure they were "good enough", despite their young age. But how could they become good enough if they never allowed themselves to make a single mistake?

He shuffled through the pages, seeing, yes, childish drawings and scrawled-in handwriting, but the story she told through him, a story that would never be reached to anyone else but the ones she boldly trusted and believed in who wouldn't laugh at her childish dreams, was quite advanced for her age. A story about a deer that held the sun in its fur and was scorned for brightening up a moonlit world, until she saw a hedgehog who had quills made from bamboo shoots who told her that brightening up the world wasn't at all a bad thing to do. In fact, it was a wondrous, beautiful thing to do, and many people didn't want to do it in fear of turning blind.

_"But I made my mother blind. My father blind. My sister blind. I was never trusted into the family. I always thought I was never good enough. That I was actually darker than everyone else because I had this hidden light inside of me."_

The hedgehog smiled. It was a smile very reminiscent of Sonic's.

_"People need to see the light. Because being in darkness for such a long time, Dawn…that will make people even blinder than seeing a great white light. They never will know of the beauty of the world. Without light, the world would never be seen, and you wouldn't even be talking to me right now. And I make you happy, do I?"_

The deer wasn't sure what to think. She was sad, because her family were now groping to find anything in their world, they were just beginning to name the textures of things, use a walking stick to get around, use scents to carry them to their destination, voices and sounds that let them know who they were with. The blindness was a punishment to being so bright. But Dawn thought that her family didn't know that the world needed brightness.

The story abruptly ended there. Cream wasn't sure of how Sonic could finish it, and she was at a loss, a writer's block to know what would happen next. Sonic sat back on the plastic chair, the tea becoming cold again, the cookies half-eaten, the dress able to slide his legs into the narrow gap. Cream brought the story, her cheeks containing slivers of tears. She never felt so emotionally tied to anyone before. Her arms shook, someone appreciating the world that she brought to everyone who weren't naysayers, but possibly doubters that thought her stories were only such childish fare.

"You see Mr. Sonic, I write about…what I feel. And not many people want to read that, right? About how we truly feel? Because if we could just write about things that are empty and not at all making us feel sad and mad and bad, then everyone doesn't have to be in touch with those bad feelings. No one will truly know how bad these feelings are. It's better to just bury them away, where no one could get these feelings at. Just store them in a jar and make sure no one else can reach them."

"But these feelings…"

He gripped her hands. They were warm. She could feel his blood swifting through him, the heart that beat inside.

"They make you more alive than you realize."

He proposed an ending.

"Say, that Dawn found something that opened up these bad feelings, and it suddenly made the world bright again. Because without them, we wouldn't appreciate the happy times. We wouldn't feel like we are what we are. We can make those feelings die away Cream, but if you do that, we die a little bit inside. Sometimes…it's okay to feel that way. The world isn't the same without those feelings. There's a purpose for everything. And if we never found purpose in any of the things we see, we soon lose the purpose in ourselves. I'm sure there's a reason why you want to be a writer. And I'm sure you will have a great purpose someday, Cream. Everything will all fall into place for you. There's no need in rushing an ending. Just experience it. Live it. Your THE END will come into place, and the reader will cry or shout for joy with it."

Sonic kept reminding himself of the dress, his cheeks blushing a slight red tint. As she held his hand, the blood was fuller, louder, and brighter.

"Maybe…Dawn finds a temple with all those bad feelings. And those bad feelings are…fire bugs. And she lets them go, and the world starts to glow. That's how I imagine things to be when they let bad feelings into the world. It's why I hid them for so long, Sonic…Because I didn't realize that I…"

She glanced at the clock. It was 6:55. Only five minutes to the piano practice, then soon, the birthday party preparations. She would be seven years old. And the seventh chapter was only the beginning of the book.

"So, what does Dawn do after the fire bugs get out of the jar?"

"She uses the power of her fur to reflect the fire bugs, and the world…"

A glow of fiery red orange came to the green curtains. The eyelid awoke, and the world was blessed with sanctimonious light. If Cheese was here she knew he would cheer. But where Cheese was…she wasn't sure. Kidnapped by Eggman's robots again? Just wandered off in search of the wondrous places that Future Cream had described in these books?

It was a future her, wasn't it? That told him of all of these things? Would she be an elegant rabbit, smoking from hookahs, styling her house to a Victorian place, writing many things to ease her soul?

Sonic's hands shook when he held the tea cup, rattling in its china blue face. He expected it to shatter, being so fragile.

He expected Cream to shatter too, her being of fragile composure, especially with many things she went through on her journeys.

But no, Sonic knew. She was strong. She fought harder than them to keep alive. She would find Cheese again. She would become a great musician, a great poet, a great artist, anything she wanted to be, just as long as she kept her heart in the right person…

7:00. It was time.

"I've got to go, Mr. Sonic. It was very nice playing with you. I hope we can do it again sometime."

She planted a soft kiss on his cheek, his blush becoming fuller.

She closed the door, it creaking as much as it did when he entered, and it shut tightly, the sun's rays glazing on the white paint.

Sonic stared at his dress, his shoes that were 2 sizes too big (possibly Vanilla's), and the bonnet that rested on his head. He thought he would keep wearing it, keep assisting Vanilla around the house, until it was time for him to leave. Vanilla would find great comfort in a hero delving into her daughter's dreams, even if it meant embarrassing himself.

He wrote the words THE END on the final page. It was a happy ending, and he was happy.


End file.
